Happy 2014 Video Birthday to One of the Best, Al Kooper

by Robert Wilkinson

I’ve always found it interesting the two amazing and unique talents who have somewhat the same name were born on consecutive days. Both were completely unique, WAY ahead of their time, and gave us some great tunes!

Al Kooper (born Alan Kuperschmidt February 5, 1944) is a major league record producer and performer. He’s played on hundreds of records, and was THE organ on Bob Dylan’s “Like A Rolling Stone.” He was the keyboard player for the mid-60s folk-rock jazz fusion group the Blues Project, which morphed into the original Blood Sweat & Tears when they actually were a unique, pioneering sound.

From there he brought Mike Bloomfield (the guitarist for that session) and Stephen Stills together in the groundbreaking first “Super Session” album, followed by the second one with Shuggie Otis. After that he discovered and produced Leonard Skynyrd, and went on to a thousand projects.

In my opinion, one of the greatest things he ever did was get CBS to release “Odessey and Oracle,” the masterwork by the Zombies consistently voted as one of the best albums of all time, when he was a staff producer for CBS. (That, and his work as the guitarist for the Royal Teens on their hit “Short Shorts,” featuring the great Bob Gaudio in his pre-4 Seasons days on keyboards! :-))

From Wikipedia:

He performed with Bob Dylan in concert in 1965,and in the recording studio in 1965 and 1966, including playing Hammond organ with Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. Kooper also played the Hammond organ riffs on Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone." It was in those recording sessions that Kooper met and befriended Mike Bloomfield, whose guitar-playing he admired. He worked extensively with Bloomfield for a number of years. Kooper played organ once again with Dylan during his 1981 world tour.

So on with the show! For this year’s tribute, I’ve chosen to focus on his early work, since it’s all too good for words!

From here we move on to an album I consider a masterpiece to this day! He was the driving force behind an idea to fuse a rock and roll band with a big band horn section, and created Blood Sweat & Tears. Their first album is not honk. “Child Is Father To The Man” is a masterpiece, a one of a kind effort at creating a sound that has only approached by Chicago since then. A great work of blending rock and roll, jazz, blues, psychedelia, and whatever into a unique piece of work!

Here’s the entire album! It’s really worth the time, since it’s a 50 minute unique piece of work that stands the test of time. “Child Is Father To the Man”

For those who don’t have the time right now, here are a few of the better tunes!